I was delighted today when an account I follow, Jonny Thomson’s Mini Philosophy, discussed Harry Frankfurt’s “Reflections on B.S,” an essay I used to teach when I was a community college instructor in the 1990’s, and one that I wrote about back in February of 2018. That post (link below), along with Corinne Purtill’s “The difference between a snafu….etc” remain among the most popular posts on this blog. I’m pleased that Frankfurt is still read and discussed.
As we stare down the barrel of another potential Trump presidency, I thought it might be helpful to revisit the Orewellian blare of that time, and the weaponized obfuscation that lies at the heart of an inability to distinguish lying and bullshit.
That difference, as Frankfurt notes, concerns truth value: one must believe that one knows the truth, in order to conceal it, to lie; whereas, the bullshitter has no necessary relation to truth.
The title of my original piece comes from 1984, and the appendix, Principles of Newspeak. It’s an imagined article in some future Newspeak-only newspaper, designed to show how Newspeak is designed and used to limit thought and action – ‘Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc,’ would replace something we might understand today, as, “Those whose ideas were formed before the revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.” The Newspeak version is brief but freighted.
It calls to mind Trump’s rambling word salads–it’s a stretch to call them speeches–impossible to pin down, and they’re formulated (if we can call it that) in such a way as to drop heavily weighted nouns that have specific meanings for his supporters. He sometimes, as in the example I used in the original post, contradicts himself within the same rambling, but the key nouns continue to resonate because the audience is not really listening. They hear the sound-cues they need and move on.
In a second Trump presidency, Project 2025 will be the scaffold for an ugly revolution, and the authors, who consulted with Trump in its creation, have made the grave mistake of being quite clear about what they will do.
Which may be why Trump is so keen to soft-peddle the Project. We need to listen, and we need to vote before it’s too late.
Here’s the Facebook post (reel) from Jonny Thomsom – https://www.facebook.com/reel/343009432203796
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James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His novel-in-progress is called Witness Tree, a (pinot) noir tale of murder and corruption set in Oregon’s wine country.
All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.
James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.
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Chosen Words - James McCrone 